After one of China's most powerful men is put under investigation, the Chinese
media begins to hint darkly at the fate of his first wife

After blanket censorship is lifted, the Chinese media hints that one of the Communist party's highest ranking former officials may have murdered his first wife.

Rumours have circulated for years about the life and lusts of 71-year-old Zhou Yongkang, a man who at his peak controlled China's police, intelligence networks and law courts, wielding a budget of £70 billion.

But until he was put under investigation on Tuesday, even his name was censored on the Chinese internet, let alone the possibly murky details of his past.

Now, however, the Chinese media has been unleashed. On Wednesday, Caixin, a magazine which has led the coverage of the Communist party's corruption scandals, published lengthy biographies of Zhou's family, including of his first wife, Wang Shuhua.

Ms Wang, a "simple and unsophisticated" woman who met Zhou when they worked together in the 1970s on an oilfield in Liaohe, in Inner Mongolia, died in 2000 in a car crash, leaving Zhou free to remarry a glamorous television anchor 28 years his junior.

"Ms Wang did all the chores at home. She also took care of the two kids. She was a good wife," a friend from the oilfield told Caixin.

Caixin did not directly point the finger at Zhou for Ms Wang's death, unlike the rumours circulating on overseas Chinese websites, but did say it was shortly after the couple separated in 2000 that she died.

"Villagers [in Zhou's home town] once saw her crying among his family tombs and invited her for dinner. She refused and said she was divorced, no longer a member of Zhou's family. Soon afterwards, the car crash killed her," it reported.

Phoenix, a Hong Kong-based television network, went further.

"[His wife] once came into a room and made a scene because she suspected he was having an affair. Then there was a meeting of wives of senior leaders. They decided to arrange a trip for Zhou's wife to cheer her up and asked her to come on a picnic in the countryside. It was that weekend that her car was hit by a vehicle with a military licence plate and she died," it reported.

Zhou's second wife, Jia Xiaoye, has been detained as part of the investigation into his affairs. A former anchor and journalist on CCTV's business and finance channel, she married Zhou just one year after the death of his first wife.

The sudden swathe of reporting about Zhou's wives and family may be part of a campaign to smear him in the public eye or may be the natural exuberance of a media that has been restricted for years, said one senior Chinese investigative journalist.

"Since he is a dead tiger who the Party has tossed away, the media can be a bit braver than before and all kinds of information can be released," he said.

"The readers tend to enjoy the stories as they would enjoy a novel. They do not really take it seriously and you can never tell how much of it is true," he added. "Some people in the government may be happy to see the information released, but it is hard to say whether the government is ordering the publication."

Zhu Ruifeng, who runs a whistleblowing website that has exposed some senior officials, said he had heard the rumours several times.

"There were details about her car being hit by armed policemen and they were only jailed for a couple of years and then promoted," he said. "But I do not think it is 100 per cent credible".

And one well-connected source in Sichuan province, Zhou's old fiefdom, said he did not believe any of the stories.

"This stuff is leaked out by the investigation team to smear him," he said. "In Sichuan there's a tradition of gossiping that party leaders kill their wives. The wife of one of Zhou's predecessors, Yang Rudai, died in a car crash in 1993. People used to say he killed her."

He added Zhou Yongkang had previously enjoyed a reputation as a relatively clean government official. "When he was in Sichuan, he was politically ambitious and he kept his family in line. I remember Zhou Bin trying to use him to win some business but he refused to even see him. Then his son made a big scene at a hotel to get his attention," he said.

"His hands were not as dirty as people think. And after the rumour spread about him killing his wife, most officials here in Sichuan did not believe it."